Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support A publisher has attacked Amazon over its failure to offer books in Welsh on the Kindle e-reading device. More than 1,500 people have also signed a petition demanding the all-conquering badboy of bookselling change its policy after the imprint attacked it in the Welsh press. Y Lolfa, a small publisher based near Aberystwyth, …
My anger comes from the sheer inefficiency of supporting more languages than are really needed in the world, and resuscitating ones that are dying just beggars belief. We need to move towards fewer languages to improve communication, not more. (I have this argument with my wife, whose native language is even less useful than Welsh, but not often - have you ever tried telling a Czech that the country's founders would have been better off sticking with German* instead of forcibly re-introducing a language that few people other than the nationalist academics spoke?)
However, I am honest enough to admit to myself that part of it is that many of these zombie languages are a) politically motivated, and when it comes to Welsh especially I don't see any justification for it, and b) they are often totally lacking in aesthetic appeal (Czech is awful, and Welsh and the other Gaelic languages aren't much better). Someone else used the term "spittle-flecked", and it sums it up nicely for me - if a language sounds like you are hawking up a mouthful of spit, then I hear someone doing just that, and it is offensive to me.
*Remember the modern Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia derives from the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the official language was German until about 1922, so I'm not referring to WW2.
Then I suggest you start writing in American English, why support more than one way of spelling, very inefficient, having to maintain more than one language on a spell checker. I also suggest you don't take a holiday or attempt to broaden your horizons in any way just in case you become offended.
I was born in London, but moved to Wales shortly before beginning my adult career in IT. Where I work, in South Wales, I am surrounded by the very live and kicking Welsh language every day. It is used interchangeabley with English by nearly everyone, and I know of no one in this organisation who cannot speak English, though I know one or two who choose not to.
Over the many years I have been living and working here I have come to develop a deep and profound fondness for the the Welsh language, its people and its culture; indeed I refer to myself as Welsh rather than English (both coming a second place to being British, of course) and when challenged I often like to say "English by Birth, Welsh by the Grace of God" or "I got here as fast as I could, what more do you want?" - always this is a point of humour and never a derogatory thing.
The Welsh language is truly ancient, predating Latin and most other western languages by several centuries. It is the oldest known written language in the UK and possibly the oldest in Europe. It was violently suppressed during the "Dark Ages" by English Kings (such as Edward II, Longshanks) and that is amongst the reasons it is less widely spoken now than it might be; similarly with the tongue of "Kernow", under which language books apparently are published on Amazon/Kindle. I am told that the number of speakers of Kernow (the cornish tongue) now number in the dozens. Even Microsoft recognise the Welsh Language in windows and we have a conversion kit that translates (almost) all of Windows into Welsh as well as many applications and related features.
To allow the Welsh language to fade is to allow another slice of British history, culture and art to disappear and that, I believe, diminishes us all as a nation.
For that reason, even being a "saes", I have chosen to learn the Welsh language as best I can, and it's a delight to be able to converse in it in my day to day work.
Diolch yn fawr am ddarllen hon!
Im wondering if Amazon worry that the next demand will be Welsh as an option in all the ui dialogs, payment pages etc and are just nipping it in the bud to save the effort in the future.
Having suffered Welsh tv for most of my childhood, I have no love for it really, s4c`s tv output really was shit compared to the proper channel 4, the Welsh always seemed to replace the good English programs with shit Welsh ones (I used to suspect on purpose). Theres only so many eisteddfod`s, awful duel language chat shows and news broadcasts (where the presenter always speaks welsh, but the person being interviewed sometimes answers in english for some bizzare reason) and bloody choirs one can put up with.
Before s4c it was even worse, all the channels were Welsh. I seem to recall English kids programs being dubbed into Welsh on BBC1.
There was a survey done a while back that estimated that some welsh tv shows had no viewers whatsoever, theres a great use of taxpayers money eh?
The rest of your post would have had more value if you hadn't have written "s4c`s tv output really was shit compared to the proper channel 4, the Welsh always seemed to replace the good English programs with shit Welsh ones (I used to suspect on purpose)."
Back then, I wasn't too bothered because I could get English Ch4 also - but to think that S4C would deliberately replace the popular programmes (and hence the ones that would bring in the greatest ad revenue) is ridiculous. It *maybe* true that popular programmes were left out due to cost reasons etc, but to think that S4C would purposely attack their revenue just to piss off people like you is paranoid in the extreme,.
" but to think that S4C would purposely attack their revenue just to piss off people like you is paranoid in the extreme"
I was sort of joking, although the welsh stuff was quite heavily subsidised and I get the feeling that the people who push welsh programming put the language`s exposure higher than revenue(see the surveys that showed how low/non existent viewing figures are). I have so many memories of friends at school raving about some cool program or film they saw on channel 4 the previous night, but not me, it was either replaced with some utter shite welsh choir/farming/chat/`culture` thing, or broadcast at the most inconvienient time, sometimes weeks later, or sometimes never.
It rained.
On a separate note, perhaps one of the Yanks at Amazon ran a book through a English to Welsh translator and got back a stream of vowels that made less sense than Klingon, thought it had buggered up and gave it up as a bad effort. He then went onto translating it into a more useful language, like Esperanto or Latin.
I was brought up in Wales. Most of the locals were first-language speakers, and Welsh was compulsory in the same league as English - Welsh grammar exams, Welsh lit. exams. Primary school was completely in Welsh, and lots of my secondary school lessons were in Welsh too. In order to learn (anything) I had to be sent away to a Welsh learning school for a few terms.
It's a bit silly, really.
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